Following the union’s termination of the month-long strike against
the city’s ending of job protections, New York City school bus drivers,
escorts and mechanics returned to work on Wednesday. Already, the
effects of the betrayal by the Amalgamated Transit Union have become
evident, with hundreds of workers receiving layoff notices, in what is
undoubtedly only the beginning of escalating attacks against the
returning workers.
The ATU Local 1181 shut down the strike after
the city’s billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg accepted bids from
contractors, which excluded the Employment Protection Provision (EPP).
This provision, established in a bitter strike in 1979, allowed workers
to maintain pay and benefits regardless of which private company won
city contracts to operate bus routes.
Using the pretense of a
worthless commitment from the city’s Democratic mayoral candidates to
“revisit” the bidding process at some time in the future, the Local 1181
leadership called off the strike without even a membership vote. In the
meantime, as many as 3,000 of the 8,800 student transportation workers
face layoff this June as 1,100 routes are contracted out to the new
low-cost bidders who no longer have to hire from a citywide seniority
list. The rest face demands for 20 percent wage cuts and other
concessions.
